New Melbourne research centre gets the green light

Advanced robots will be enlisted by a new Melbourne research centre to develop live-saving new drugs to cure rare conditions.

Advanced robots will be enlisted by a new Melbourne research centre to develop live-saving new drugs to cure rare conditions.

The “drug discovery” centre at Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research will open in June this year, paving the way for the development of new medicines to treat a range of different conditions and diseases.

Health Minister Greg Hunt will announce on Monday the Morrison Government will provide $25 million to help establish the Australia-first centre at Parkville.

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Associate Professor Daniel Gray analysing blood cancer cells to work out why some evade destruction. Picture: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

The advanced robotics equipment will help researchers at the new centre screen hundreds of thousands of chemicals and quickly identify which ones would be able to successfully treat a particular disease.

It is a similar process used by big pharmaceutical companies to help them develop new medicines — but the researchers would be able to do it without the need to make a profit so they can potentially find new cures for rare conditions.

WEHI research team leader Professor Guillaume Lessene said the drug discovery centre would use the “latest technology” in a bid to find completely new medicines.

“We are not a drug discovery company. Our aim is really to facilitate the translation of totally new science,” Prof Lessene said.

“Therefore our aim is to explore the discovery of completely new medicines, so we are prepared to take a bit more of a risk than a big pharmaceutical company.”

Greg Hunt. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

The centre will include 36 workers, including experts from around the world, and cost a total of more than $60 million.

Along with the $25 million from the Commonwealth, there has also been philanthropic support as well as $32.1 using royalties from an anti-cancer drug Venetoclax.

Mr Hunt said the government’s investment in the research centre would help develop new drugs to treat both common and rare diseases.

“The robotics equipment will enable the centre’s world-class researchers to screen hundreds of thousands of chemicals and rapidly identify which ones can alter processes in the body implicated in a particular disease or condition,” Mr Hunt said.

“This discovery provides the starting point for the development of new medicines.

“The discovery and commercial success of venetoclax is a leading example of how Australia can benefit from great discoveries, and how as a nation we can continually excel in health and medical research on the international stage.

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